Dear Umesha,
Compare apples to apples please...
Mujtaba Merchant
Bangalore, India
-----Original Message-----
From: accessindia-bounces at accessindia.org.in
[mailto:accessindia-bounces at accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Umesha
Economics
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 8:47 PM
To: accessindia at accessindia.org.in
Subject: Re: [AI] [nvda-translations] Open Letter to NVDA users!
the starting salary mentioned in the mail amounts to about 1 lakh and 30
thousand Rupees per month. even the salary of a senior professor or vice
chancellor of a university in India is less than that.
Umesha
----- Original Message -----
From: "saravanan" <saravanan.ramadoss1 at gmail.com>
To: <accessindia at accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Sunday, 29 April, 2012 10:14 AM
Subject: [AI] [nvda-translations] Open Letter to NVDA users!
> Subject: [nvda-translations] Open Letter To NVDA Users
> Dear friends,
> if this message is cross-posting and violating
> the rules of the list, Please excuse me, its very urgent.
> -------
> Hi,
> In my humble opinion, this needs to go on the donations page of
> nvda-project.org. Either way, I am going to publish it in a prominent
> place.
> This is the final version of what I wrote last week, and I tried to mark
> it
> up with t2t formatting. I hope it's correctly marked up.
>>>> =Open Letter To NVDA Users =
>>>> Dear Fellow NVDA User,
>>>> I'm writing to you to explain why our consistent contributions to
> NVAccess,
> and NVDA are important.
>>>> The mission of NV Access, the company that makes NVDA states:
>>>> We are dedicated to the ideal that access to technology should not incur
> an
> extra cost for blind and vision impaired users. We believe that blind and
> vision impaired people should be able to use any type of technology for
> the
> same cost as their sighted peers. To that end, our primary aim is to
> support
> projects which provide free and open source computer software solutions
> that
> enable this accessibility.
>>>> == My Story ==
>>>> I want to say what NVDA means to me. I live in the United States. I've had
> the good fortune to be able to be in a position to have a government
> agency,
> combined with corporate funds available to me. If I had been unable to
> purchase my screen reader and keep up with the costs of the maintenance of
> that screen reader at the time when I first became employed, I would never
> have been able to afford to buy what I needed to get my first job, and I'd
> probably be living alone, with little to no money to follow my dreams.
>>>> Now, because I have a screen reader, and the funding from the company I
> work
> for, I can maintain my way of life, take care of my family, and have some
> extra money left over.
>>>> And with NVDA, I now have a free alternative, which in many ways is better
> than the screen reader my company maintains for me.
>>>> Besides that, I have direct access to the developers of NVDA, NV Access.
> And
> if I have the means and the time, I can contribute to NVDA by donating,
> testing, writing documentation, translating NVDA into a language,
> answering
> questions on the support list, and telling the NVDA story to those who
> will
> listen.
>>>> Because I'm a musician, who would rather be playing music full time than
> doing what I do now, I understand what it means to have given up what I
> love
> to do in order to do what I have to do to feed my family. It's the
> difference between night and day. Few of us have the joy of being able to
> have fun at work. Mick and Jamie are now able to do what they love to do
> for
> a living, fulfilling the mission of NV Access, the company that makes and
> maintains NVDA.
>>>> If my steady contribution can help keep them working on NVDA, then,
> vicariously, I can have the joy of knowing that they are doing what they
> really want to do.
>> And selfishly, I get to benefit from that small donation.
>>>> == Where Does The Money Go? ==
>>>> Like many others, I want to know where my money is going when I donate.
> For
> anyone who donates, this is a fare question to ask. Let me put this into
> perspective.
>>>> I work for a recruiting company in the United States. The starting salary
> of
> an entry-level, full time employee in a professional position is about
> 30,000 USD. If the individual also needs to have the health insurance to
> take care of the average family, that raises the cost to the company who
> employs that individual to about 45,000 USD.
>>>> Part of the money we donate keeps Mick and Jamie working on NVDA for us.
> Jamie and Mick would love to be able to say that they are pulling in
> 90,000
> USD to work full time on something they love. That would be a great
> foundation on which they could count to keep NVDA alive and growing.
>>>> == A Myth About Big Donations ==
>>>> When I considered donating to NVDA, I said to myself "Why should I
> contribute? Mick and Jamie are doing fine with the funding they have been
> getting from foundations and corporations." When I started to check to see
> if this was true, though, I found out how wrong I was. According to The
> Foundation Center, at http://foundationcenter.org/, less than 17% of all
> giving to worthy organizations comes from foundations and corporations.
> And
> much of the time, there are great peaks and valley s in that giving. That
> means that NV Access must constantly attempt to raise funds to keep itself
> alive, and that Mick and Jamie are under constant stress both because they
> have to spend time to raise funds on which to live, and because of the
> peaks
> and valleys in funding. And assuming that they have the most supportive
> families and friends in the world, their ability to spend as much time as
> possible on making NVDA what it needs to be suffers from the time spent
> away
> from working on it, and from the stress of the conflict between doing what
> they love and doing what they have to do to take care of their loved ones.
>>>> == We Are Very Important ==
>>>> To totally spell that out, NV Access, given the above figures, would rely
> on
> 83% of its donations from individuals like you and I.
>>>> You and I can make a huge difference, if we will.
>>>> Let me use myself as an example. The software maintenance agreement for my
> screen reader would cost me approximately 130 USD per year. Now I'm not
> that
> good at math, so bear with me. That's something like 12 USD per month.
> That
> breaks down to about 3 USD per week. In some places I might go to eat,
> that's half the price of a desert. So if I go out to eat once a week, and
> I
> go out to eat more times than that, and I skip desert, I can afford to
> donate 12 USD a month for the use of NVDA with no problem, and I get a
> little better health in the bargain.
>>>> Here's another example that fits my situation. I like to buy coffee in the
> lobby where I work. I'm even a card-carrying, cup wielding member of the
> coffee club they have going down there. That makes the price of coffee
> 1.25
> USD for me. I drink at least a cup a day, sometimes more. If all I do is
> give up one, single cup of coffee per week, which is probably bad for me,
> that works out to about 5 USD per month. I can definitely afford that, and
> I
> also get better health in the bargain.
>>>> Now, let's see. Can I put a price on access to my computer? What do I get
> out of being able to use my computer? I get a job that allows me to feed
> myself, my family, my two dogs, my cat, and pay for my house, my car, all
> those meals out, and lots more. And all I have to do is give up one desert
> a
> week or a cup of coffee a week, depending on how much I want to donate. If
> I
> lose the full time use of the screen reader I talked about above, I still
> have NVDA. If I lose my job, I still have NVDA to help me get another one.
> If I lose my computer, and can't use NVDA on it, I can still go to the
> library and carry NVDA on a flash drive with me, and still have a way to
> help myself get back on my feet. How can I put a price on that?
>>>> == What About You? ==
>>>> Now, let's take the community of NVDA users as a whole. Let's say that the
> entire community of NVDA users gets to benefit from two releases of NVDA
> per
> year, which is the norm. For this example, we are totally eliminating
> corporate and foundational giving, and we are eliminating the higher
> numbers
> in my example.
>>>> For this example, let's assume that the whole NVDA community consists of
> 25,000 individuals who donate not 5 USD per month, but who donate 5 USD
> per
> release. If that happens, NV Access would get 125,000 per year, which is
> 35,000 more than the salary figures I quoted above as that of two entry
> level professional employees in the United States. If the NVDA community
> consists of 25,000 individuals and everyone downloads twice a year and
> gives
> 5 USD per download, NV Access would get 250,000 per year.
>>>> Now, as I freely admit, I am bad at math, but that makes my head swim.
>>>> Let me go a little further. Let me assume that we use the money I talked
> about above to employ Mick and Jamie full time. NV Access could take the
> money and not only employ Mick and Jamie, but also employ two other people
> and pay each person 62,500 USD. What would those other employees do for
> us?
> One might be a third programmer, and that would exponentially increase the
> speed and efficiency of NVDA development. Another could be an
> administrator,
> possibly answering tickets, handling customer inquiries , maintaining the
> web site, and who knows what else, to take the pressure off of the
> developers. The result, still more efficiency and a much better NVDA.
>>>>>> == Recap ==
>>>> Let me emphasize.
>>>> - We all give not 12, but 5 USD per month.
>> - We do it every month.
>> - No corporate or foundational giving whatsoever.
>>>> My math can't handle the amount of money that would generate. I just blew
> out my brain cells.
>>>> Can you see how powerful you and I can be if we just will decide to give 5
> USD per month? I'm definitely having trouble seeing what we can do
> together.
> Can you?
>>>> But the point is also this. How much are we getting back for that little
> investment? There's no possible way I can put a price on that. And the
> feeling we get from knowing that for 5 USD a month we can use our computer
> and do what we have or want to do for fun, and to have the joy of being
> able
> to freely contribute to a great screen reader, and a great cause, is much
> better, and more lasting than a little bit of caffeine, which is probably
> bad for us, and only lasts for a few hours.
>>>> What do you think about this? Will you help me? Will you help Mick and
> Jamie? Will you help yourself? It's so easy to set up a donation of 5 USD
> per month, and you will hardly feel it. You may not feel it at all.
>>>> If you are reading this right after you get paid, or right after your
> money
> comes in, go and set up a donation now. If you're reading this, and your
> funds are low, set up a reminder for yourself to set up that donation for
> the time you know you will be getting more funds.
>>>> Either way, do it now.
>>>> Isn't it easy to be so powerful?
>>>> You have the power. Do it now.
>>>> Thanks for reading.
>>>> Jim
>>>>jhomme1028 at gmail.com>>>> Jim Homme,
>> Usability Services,
>> Phone: 412-544-1810.
>> A picture can say a thousand words, but whether they're the right words is
> another matter
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> ______
> Please feel free to pass your comments, feedbacks & new ideas to the
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> menntioned contact details.
> Email:
>saravanan.ramadoss1 at gmail.com>saravanan_2008 at hotmail.com> *******
> "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
> William Shakespeare
> ------
> Character can not be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience
> of
> trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and
> success achieved.
> Helen Keller
> ######
> Adieu.
> Saravanan.R
> $$$$$$$$$
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